


Binary Stars

by antheiasilva



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: ....about each other, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode tag: Epilogue, Episode tag: The Hunt, Eventual AU, Loss of Child, M/M, Nightmares, Pre-Slash, Slow Build, So much guilt, Suicidal Thoughts, Trust Issues, conflicting attachment styles, episode tag: seizure, relationships are hard, they have so many feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-10 14:57:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6990079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antheiasilva/pseuds/antheiasilva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are more alike than they think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Admissions

Rush knew something was terribly wrong before he opened his eyes. His chest felt heavy and the pit of his stomach sour. Sparks of fear flitted around his heart. And something darker, something that pulled him away from himself, refused to let him open his eyes, pinned his limbs to the bed. He lay still for a minute and listened. He could hear TJ’s soft voice to his right. She was being patient but firm with someone. By the pitch of the answering voice he gathered it was Eli.

Eli.

What had Mandy said? Eli had to do something. Something that made her scared and sad.

What was it?

How bad could it be?

Mandy was here. How bad could anything be?

He would fix it.

That’s right.

Mandy was here.

Why did he feel so awful?

What was so wrong?

Whatever it was, he could fix it. Or she could fix it.

He just needed to see her. Maybe she was already here. Why wouldn’t she be? Eli was here.

He clung to the thought of her as he opened his eyes.

 

The look on Eli’s face. Tamara’s face.

 

Memory came hurtling back like a landslide.

 

\--

 

When Eli told him, he was livid. Rush had _uploaded_ his consciousness _into_ the ship to be with his, what? _girlfriend_?

Rush? The man who had no friends. Who showed little to no sign of needing any human interaction whatsoever. Who actively and deliberately shut down any and every personal conversation. Who recoiled from touch as if it burned him. _Rush_. Uploaded. His consciousness. For sex. With Amanda Perry. The mind boggled.

But then, he did trek halfway across an alien desert to murder the man who killed her. Not knowing if Destiny would be able to return, and so potentially giving up his mission and his own life. If that wasn’t love, what was?

Everett didn’t know. He couldn’t pretend to understand Rush’s motivations, much less emotions. But something about this entire charade struck him as dangerously discordant with what he knew of the man. He’d been out of the infirmary for two days. There were going to be _words._ A few months ago, Young thought, clenching and unclenching his hands, there would have been fists.

Now he just had to find him.

 

\--

 

Rush had tried. After his confrontation with Eli in the infirmary, he had tried to find a way to bring Ginn back. Surely he could separate them. It made no sense for Amanda’s program to be bound up with Ginn’s.

It appeared she had written it into the program as a kind of insurance policy. The thought made him sick.

He had gone into the chair willingly, trusting her with everything he’d kept from everyone else for so long. It was unthinking. Careless. Stupid. Reckless. The same kind of recklessness that drove him after Simeon. But he loved her. And he was drowning. After the Nakai, the Lucian Alliance, the bridge, Destiny as Gloria, Riley, Young’s fists, Telford, Chloe, his twin. Her death. Simeon.

He thought she was his life raft.

He could not have been more wrong.

 

She wasn’t the person he thought she was. Maybe that was Destiny’s fault. Maybe death changed her. The insecurity he could deal with. The lying scared him. Sure, he had a flexible relationship with the truth. But that was with people he didn’t really know. People he didn’t really trust. It horrified him to think that Young, for all his faults—poor decisions, hesitations, anger problems, propensity for violence—had been more honest, more straightforward with him than Mandy had. When he’d only ever told Mandy the truth—mostly— and he’d spent most of his time trying to manipulate and run circles around Young. What the fuck was going on? This was _not_ the way it was supposed to be. What was wrong with him?

He thought of Mandy’s shifting and hedging as he tried to get out of the neural interface chair. Her excuses ramped up to a terrifying lie that he was going to blow up the ship. He couldn’t understand it. Why hadn’t she trusted him? Why had she played games with him? And why did it bother him so much? He quashed a touch of horror at the memory of the kiss that he shouldn’t have been able to feel.

A small part of him protested that the parameters should have worked. Maybe it was his fault. Maybe his feelings weren’t strong enough. Or maybe he wasn’t capable of love after Gloria. Or before.

Or maybe her idea of what love was different. Too different.

Maybe she scared the shit out of him and he stopped feeling it.

 

-

 

Rush wasn’t answering his radio. Of course. What else was new? He tried the bridge, the CI room, the math corridor, the mess, hydroponics, even the observation deck. Nothing.

He wound his way through Destiny’s corridors to the last place he expected to find Rush—his own damn quarters.

He knocked. “Rush?”

He knocked louder. “Rush, are you in there?”

Still nothing.

He hit the door controls. _Hmm. Unlocked._ He walked in.

 

Rush’s quarters made his own look cluttered. Aside from a chess set, a laptop and a speaker deck, the room had no personal possessions. Rush was seated at the larger table, staring at his laptop, head propped up by his left hand tangled in his hair. He had a pair of headphones in and was staring blankly at the screen. He blinked in surprise at the door and yanked his headphones out.

“Colonel?” He stood up slowly, pressing his hand into the table, as if he were in pain. 

Young considered his appearance for a moment before answering. He looked worse than usual. Greasy hair, scruffier beard, clothes that definitely needed a run through the laundry, dark circles under his eyes. And he didn’t look angry. Young had just waltzed into his quarters and Rush just looked exhausted. A pang of sympathy hit him.

He cleared his throat. “We need to talk,” he said gruffly.

“Do we?” Rush sighed and looked down. “About what?” He was playing dumb, but there was no heart in it. His tone was flat. Young still took the bait, partly out of habit, partly because he was angry. And, if he was quite honest with himself, because he knew how to deal with angry Rush. Despondent Rush was making him distinctly uncomfortable. 

“You know very damn well.” The part of him that was feeling sympathy knew he shouldn’t swear at the scientist, but he couldn’t quite help it. He crossed the room to stand two feet away from Rush, who he was leaning against the table. “I just spent two hours talking Eli down from reporting you to the SGC to get you stripped of your position and put under some elaborate version house arrest for murder and criminal negligence. You wanna give me a goddamn reason why I shouldn’t? What the _fuck_ were you thinking?”

Rush, who whose irritation had been slowly—or not so slowly— building since Young arrived, bristled, shaking away his quiet demeanour and exhaustion. Unsurprisingly, anger lit the man up. His eyes flashed. “I don’t know. What the fuck were you thinking when you beat me senseless and left me on a planet to die? If you want to talk about murder and criminal negligence, by all means, _let’s_ …,” he hissed. 

Young tried to dodge. “Don’t give me that. You know that’s not the issue here. Stop playing games.”

He could tell the rant was coming. The damning, evisceration of his character. The threatening and shouting. He braced for it and Rush predictably obliged. “You’re _such_ a control freak, and a useless one at that. Meddling in things you don’t understand. You can barely read Ancient, you know nothing of computers or math or astrophysics. How you can expect to lead this mission is beyond me. You don’t understand Destiny and yet you keep trying, keep expecting to control her. You keep trying to control me. But you can’t. _I won’t let you,_ ” he sneered. “You have no power over my decisions. My choices. I don’t have to tell you _anything._ ” He waved his right hand dismissively and aggressively into the space between them, forcing Young to step back slightly.

As watched the other man, he could see, he could _see_ Rush going on the offensive. He was just trying to manipulate the situation, put Young on the defensive. Insult him to distract him. Gesticulate to take up more space, be more aggressive. It was a tactic. This was Rush’s default operating mode, use his wit and his scathing disdain to scare people into submission, into leaving him alone. But something was different this time. Rush wasn’t meeting his eyes. He was upset, but distracted. The words poured out of him, but without the usual focus and conviction. As if he was an actor, tired at the end of a rehearsal. Young was surprised at what he detected beneath his words: they were empty. Old and tired insults designed to throw him off balance. They had worked before, but this time they fell lifeless between them.

Then it hit him. Rush was _ashamed_. Shit. This was new. And god help him, he knew what that was like. He wanted to yell back. He really wanted to. But he knew from his own experience that guilt would be much more effective than intimidation. Guilt was a way in under the armour. And guilt was exactly what Young wanted Rush to feel. It was what he deserved. Bastard. Fucking indispensible bastard. He forced himself to keep eye contact as he laid bare a painful truth, though to which of them it would be more painful—him to admit it, or Rush to hear it—he was unsure. He leaned in to Rush’s space. “That’s twice now. Twice,” he growled, narrowing his eyes.

“Twice what, _Colonel_?” Rush twisted the title into an insult.

“Twice," Young kept his voice low. "You abandoned the mission. Destiny. And you abandoned us.”

Rush stared at him, surprised. It was clearly not what he’d expected, not by far.

“What?” He breathed sharply, almost a whisper. He narrowed his eyes and stared at Young hard.

Breathe, Young thought to himself. The worst was over and there were no explosions yet. Stick to the facts. Rush can’t argue with the facts. He took a deep breath.

            “Twice. First when you went after Simeon.” He paused, letting it sink in for Rush. He remembered the panic on the bridge and the cold fear blooming in his chest when the implications of Rush not turning back to the gate sunk in. Even Brody, who rarely lashed out and usually took Rush’s antics in stride, was angry. Everyone was scared. Chloe, god bless her, was more like Rush than anyone had noticed, or even considered likely. She refused to admit defeat. She wouldn’t leave him on the planet. Not for anything. She found a way, plotting a new FTL course and turning the ship around. And she had screamed at him after, as he stumbled through the gate, losing coherence in her tears: “How could you? How COULD YOU?” It had reminded Young of the first time. All righteous, destructive fury, she had blamed him for her father’s death. She had hated him then. Now, well… so much had changed. Chloe was one of the few people on the ship Rush spoke to and who spoke to Rush. Rush hadn’t gotten angry. He’d just stood there stoically and took it, gripping the railing with white knuckles and gulping water. “It doesn't matter,” he’d said. "I’m here now.” It had made her more angry, and she collapsed against Eli and Scott. As they lead her away, Eli looked like he wanted to murder Rush himself, though whether it was because he’d done what Eli couldn’t or because he’d endangered them by disappearing, Young didn’t know.

Because out here, on the edge of the universe, it was more dangerous without Rush. By far. He hated to admit it. But it was the truth. He was worth every damn ounce of work Young put into him as far as he was concerned. Especially after the Lucian Alliance. And Chloe’s abduction.

He looked at Rush’s surprise and continued. “And second, when you _uploaded your consciousness_ to the ship.”

Rush shook his head, hair falling in his eyes. He looked down. He tried to cover. “I did no such thing. I knew that Chloe…”

“Save it.” Young interrupted. “I saw your face when you came back. You didn’t know. You didn’t care. Where was the mission then? The greater good? How are we supposed to do this without you, you bastard? You want to stay on the ship. You call for volunteers. You convince _me_. The mission. The secrets of the goddam universe! I don’t fucking know. But I want to. _You_ made me want to. You made a lot of us want to and then you fucking leave? You take off on a suicidal revenge quest for someone who is already dead. You couldn’t help her. Where was your goddamn fucking pragmatism then? Makes me think that all of this is just according to your whims. You have a lot of rhetoric, but it seems you actually do things because you just _want_ to, the rest of us be damned.”

“You’re mad,” Rush said slowly, carefully, as if he barely believed the words, as if someone else was saying them. “You’re mad because I _left_?”

“Yeah, genius!” Young scrubbed a hand over his face in frustration. “You think we can do this without you? Of course you don’t. Because you’ve spent months trying to prove it to us. And I’ve got news for you. We believe you. I believe you. And you know what that means? You have a fucking responsibility to the people on this fucking ship. You wanted power? Well congratulations. You got it. And that means you _can’t_ recklessly endanger yourself.” He stopped, fixing Rush in a hard stare. His eyes were dark and his voice low as he growled, “I promised you. I promised you I would protect you like anyone else on this ship, so help me god, so what the fuck am I doing it for if you don’t protect yourself?”

“I wasn’t—“ Rush protested, hand running through his hair, exasperated.

“Don’t.” Young cut him off. This time when he leaned into Rush’s space, he jabbed his chest with his index finger as if punctuating a sentence. “ _You_ almost _died._ ” His throat was tight. He heard his voice crack slightly. He hoped Rush didn’t. He hated to admit it to himself but the thought of Rush dying had been next to unbearable. It wasn’t just fear for their ability to handle the ship, and the increasing threat of drones and whatever else the universe would throw their way. It was him. Rush had changed. After the confrontation on the alien ship, Rush had been significantly easier to work with, and his hard veneer had started to crack considerably. He’d seen his concern for Chloe and his relief when she was returned healthy. It wasn’t just her math abilities he’d valued. And Chloe had told him about the conversation they had. He’d been conforting, kind, and admitted that his time on Destiny was causing him to question his way of being in the world. Young could see it. He could see the man becoming part of the crew. He could see him becoming a friend.

“Careful colonel. Someone might think that you actually cared,” Rush sneered, pushing away Young’s hand.

“You asshole,” Young said, rolling his eyes in disbelief. ” Of course, I care! You’re a member of this crew.” He paused. How much could he actually tell Rush? Should he tell Rush? “You’re a member of this crew. And you scared the goddam shit out of me.” This time, he knew Rush could hear his fear and he didn’t care. In for a penny, in for a pound. Maybe it would make Rush think. See things really had shifted .

Rush blinked, narrowed his eyes, cocked his head and bit his lower lip, considering Young as if he were a new piece of Ancient technology he’d never seen before.

“Why?” Young continued, not quite able to stand the silence. “I want to know what the hell was so fucking important.”

Rush shook his head, shaken out of his contemplation. “Eli told you,” he said quietly.

“I want to hear it from _you._ ”

“Well, _I_ don’t want to talk about it!” He turned to go back to his computer. “Now please _leave_ ,” he hissed.

Young caught his shoulder and spun him around. “Too bad. Talk.”

Young could see Rush’s fury rise up like a storm cloud. He tore his arm away from Young, and used the momentum to veer into Young’s face. “Or what?” he challenged, menacingly.

Young stepped back and clenched his fists, fighting an urge to hit Rush. No. He was not going down that road again. A physical confrontation would do nothing but give Rush the moral highground. He put his hands in his pockets and planted his feet. “Or nothing. I can’t do a damn thing.” He shrugged. “I won’t hit you again. I can’t lock you up. I refuse to see you fired or stripped of your position. You’re too important. And I am not afraid to admit it.” _Let’s see you turn that around_. He felt like he was using an opponent’s swing against them, running with the momentum, speeding it up, so they’d tumble forward off balance and give him the upper hand. Rush was so adamant about how essential he was. Fine. He could roll with that. Actually, it was kind of liberating. “Makes things a hell of a lot easier if I just tell the fucking truth.” He paused. “We need you. You left us. I’m angry and I want to know why. So I’m asking you to _talk_ to me. Because this can’t happen again and I need to know where your head is at.” 

Rush looked confused. He glanced back and forth, trapped. “It won’t happen again,” he said quietly after a moment. “It can’t.”

“What about next time?” _Nope. You’re not getting away that easily._

“What next time, Colonel? She’s gone. I can’t bring her back. It would be unadvisable even if I could. So it won’t happen again.”

“I’m not talking about your computer simulated booty call. I’m talking about what happens next time your emotions get the better of you because of someone you love?”

Rush stared at him. “Love?”

Young shook his head, disbelieving _. Wow. A lotta work_. “Yes. I assume you loved her. Nothing else makes people that stupid.”

Rush snorted. “Ill-considered maybe — not stupid.”

“Whatever. I don’t care about semantics. You know what I mean. So? What happens?”

Rush looked down. His shoulders fell. He sighed. “It won’t happen again.”

“How do you know?” Young pushed, frustrated. Why was getting a clear answer out of Rush always so goddamn impossible?

“You’ll just have to trust me,” Rush said firmly, clearly not budging.

“Not good enough. Talk. I’m not leaving til you answer my question.” Young grabbed the chair from the small table by the door and swung it into the middle of the room where he’d been standing, and sat down, staring at Rush.

Rush rubbed a hand through his hair in frustration and considered his options. Frustration, mixed with disbelief, radiated off of him. He turned away and threw himself into the armchair on the far wall. His room was small though, so he was still less than 10 feet from Young. They locked eyes. Rush looked away.

“Because, _colonel,_ there is no one left,” he bit out through clenched teeth. “Is that what you want to hear? There’s no one left in this universe whom I love, so _no_ , it _won’t_ happen again.”

And then, to Young’s great shock, and Rush seemed to crumple where he sat. He sank his face into his hands.

A wave of sadness hit Young and he swallowed a lump in his throat. His own eyes prickled. _Shit._

 

And just like that, Nicholas Rush unravelled in front of him.

 


	2. Connections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to laurie_ky for her excellent beta reading.
> 
> This chapter is pretty emotional. Content advisory for discussion of suicidal thoughts.

Young didn’t move. He didn’t know what to do. Rush had collapsed in the armchair across from him after he had cornered him into talking about Amanda Perry. He watched the other man’s shoulders shake and listened to him weep. He felt suddenly angry with himself for having pushed so hard. Rush might not show it, but he was devastated. 

Christ. He was human. How could he not be?

Empathy bloomed in Young’s chest. He stood up and carefully crossed the room. He knelt in front of Rush. 

“She’s gone. She’s gone, and I couldn’t save her. Just like I couldn’t save Gloria,” Rush choked through tears. “I couldn’t. I tried.” He wound his hands into his hair and cried.

“Hey,” said Young softly. He touched Rush’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. His throat was tight. “I know. I know.” And he did. He really fucking did. Fuck. How many people had he lost? The incident before Icarus still weighed on his conscience, Telford’s brainwashing aside. Worse than that were the losses on Destiny. Carmen. He swallowed, his own sadness at the loss of his daughter rising up, threatening to overwhelm him. 

Rush looked up at him, pushed his hair back.,  
They locked eyes and really looked at each other. It was hard.

“I know, Nicholas,” Young said again. He gripped Rush’s hands in his right hand. His left hand was still on Rush’s right shoulder. Young tugged him forward slightly, closer to him. Rush squeezed his hand back, and then gravity seemed to overwhelm him. He collapsed forward, sliding to the floor and closing the distance between them, even as Young pulled him into his arms. 

Rush wept on Young’s shoulder. Young held him gently, heart askew. 

No one talked about it, but he had done this for his men before. After a mission gone wrong. After parts of their team didn’t come home. Being here with Rush was—perhaps surprisingly—not that different. He and Rush, they’d fought together and lost people together. It took its toll. And Rush, god help him, Rush was coming apart at the seams, and Young, in his own pain, hadn’t noticed. The realization sank into him like lead.

“It’s okay,” Young said quietly. “You’re going to be okay.” He tightened his grip on the other man a fraction, trying to be comforting.

Rush cried harder. 

And there they sat, together, on the floor of Rush’s quarters, encircled with sadness and loss. One of them weeping. The other desperately trying not to. Time seemed to stop.

Eventually, Rush slipped his arms around Young and sagged against his chest. “I’m sorry,” Young breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

Rush looked up, blank at first, slowly processing.

“About Amanda,” Young continued carefully. “I never should have let Simeon out. I didn’t trust him. I knew he was dangerous. I never…” His eyes fell. He couldn’t quite look at Rush, even though the other man was still in his arms. “It’s my fault. The others too.” 

“I brought her on board,” Rush said, sitting back slightly. “I did. It was selfish. And unnecessary. I wanted to see her. After the Lucian Alliance.” He paused. “But if I had just told everyone about the bridge. If I had just… She didn’t need to be there. I just wanted her here. And now she’s dead.” 

Young took in Rush’s words. It wasn’t like Rush to blame himself. And in this case, he had no interest in blaming him either. “No. You were right. You couldn’t trust me. Even Scott agreed with you. He told me. Do I think you should have trusted your team? Maybe. But I can see why you didn't. It’s not your fault she’s dead. It’s no one’s fault but the man who killed her.”

Rush shook his head. “It is. Just like Riley. And now she and Ginn are both locked away. Because I fucked up. I fucked up. I never should have let her convince me. I should have built the parameters myself. I should have talked to Eli. I…” His voiced faltered. Young tried to imagine Rush talking to Eli about using the neural interface chair to visit their incorporeal girlfriends. He couldn’t. Rush was an intensely private person, and Eli had had a hard time enough talking to Young about what the physical aspects of Rush’s motivation must have been. “… So many things, Colonel,” he said quietly. “So many things I should have done. And now she’s gone. For good. And I can’t bring her back. And she can’t move on. She’s trapped on this fucking ship. It’s not right. She’ll never have peace. It’s fucking worse than death.” Rush’s eyes glittered.

Young looked at Rush and saw something he never thought he’d see staring back at him. Pure, unrelenting hatred. But it wasn’t for him. It was for himself. Rush hated himself. For what happened. Possibly for a good number of things that Young didn’t know about. He’d heard rumours about Gloria’s death and Rush being away. Young didn’t know what to say. He just knew he wanted to fix it. He wanted to take away Rush’s pain and guilt and anger and self-hatred. He wanted to take it away because he knew what it felt like. He faced it every day.  
Hell, they were so alike when stripped down to their psyches. They dealt with things differently, but that haunted look in Rush’s eyes…. Everett saw it in the mirror ever day.

“We’ll find a way. We will. We can get experts from earth. Daniel Jackson has ascended twice. Surely–”

“I can’t, Colonel. I just can’t. We don’t have a body for her. She was so lonely. And…it changed her. I don’t…” He stopped. “She was the only one I trusted. And I shouldn’t have. Or Destiny changed her. I don’t know. But it was…” He shuddered. “I went in careless. Part of me didn’t care if it killed me. I just wanted some peace. But I never thought...I don’t know if I am glad to be alive, but at least I’m not there.”

A dark feeling came over Young as he listened. “I’m glad.” It was the only thing he could think to say. Rush looked at him, confused.

“I’m glad that you’re alive. I’m glad that you’re here.” He smiled tightly, knowing it was a big risk to be so vulnerable with Rush, especially with regard to his feelings about Rush.

Rush grimaced, like it was painful to hear. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I wish I could say that your sentiment means something. But it doesn’t. It will pass in time, I suppose.” He looked down. “Or it won’t.”

Young gave him a hard look, serious but kind, tilting Rush’s chin up gently to look him in eyes. “I need you to tell me. If this feeling gets worse. If it doesn’t go away. If…” he trailed off. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it. He stopped, swallowing thickly, squeezed his eyes shut. “I know,” he said in a strangled voice. “ I know what it is like to have a death wish. Sometimes it’s far away. You keep going and part of you is hoping that someone or something will do it for you. You volunteer for the dangerous missions. You think, better me than someone else. I’m ready to go. It will be a relief. And other times, other times…you wanna take matters into your own hands. Don’t. Please don’t. There are people on this ship counting on you. And whether you choose to believe it or not, there are people on this ship who care about you and will miss you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Rush said quietly, almost too soft to hear.

“I do. Chloe and Eli. Lisa. Scott. T.J.” He swallowed nervously. “Me.”

Rush blinked in surprise, despite himself. It reminded Young of the moment he’d told the scientist he’d be staying on Destiny with him. “Plus you and me?” he’d said. The look Rush had given him was priceless and for reasons completely obscure to him made his insides churn with an undefined emotion when he thought of it. It also lightened his heart. There was something hopeful in that look.

Rush shook his head almost imperceptibly, clearing the expression out of his eyes. He sighed. “Eli….

“Will forgive you. He will. Give it time.”

“I don’t deserve it. Not from him. Not from anyone. Certainly not from Mandy. Or Riley. Or Gloria.”

“You’re human, Nick.” Young took a chance using the familiar version of Rush’s first name. “You’re human. And I know, I know you don’t mean to hurt people. Not really. Verbally, sure. You can be a mean son of a bitch. But you spend a lot of time and energy trying to make sure we make it out alive. Chloe knows that. So does Eli in his own way.” Young thought about how Rush’s twin had stayed behind on Destiny to evacuate the rest of the crew. His heart still twisted at the thought of Rush alone in an empty gateroom.  
“Maybe if you showed people how you really feel, you’d give them the chance.”

Rush squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed a sob. 

“Are you sorry?” Young asked softly. It was a rhetorical question.

Rush began to cry again. Harder. He couldn’t talk. He just nodded, his face in his hands.

“Then that’s all any of us can ask for, genius. You’re human. Try to remember that sometimes.”

Rush sagged forward, head hitting Young’s already damp shoulder and Young gathered him in his arms again and let him cry. Their whole interaction up until this point was so uncharacteristic that Young found himself wondering if Rush had started picking up his rations from Brody’s still. But he couldn’t smell anything and Rush didn’t really seem drunk—as far as Young could tell— but he was distressed enough that he no longer seemed quite able to control his emotions or his tears. He thought about Rush’s breakdown months ago when they had first arrived on Destiny. He’d certainly managed to work himself up into erratic and emotional behaviour then. Well, extreme exhaustion and drunkenness often felt the same. He wondered when the last time Rush had slept was. Probably not since he woke up from the coma.

“You’re okay,” he said gently. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. I’m here. I’ve got you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

It felt like ages, but it was probably not much longer than fifteen minutes. Rush stopped crying. He was so still that Young began to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. He shifted carefully to look at him. Rush’s eyes were unfocused. It was if he wasn’t there. He’d stopped being able to process things. Young pulled Rush up as he stood and then scooped up his legs and carried him to the bed. It was certainly time for him to pass out.

Young laid a limp Rush on the bed. He tugged off his boots and pulled the bedcover over Rush and considered what to do next. He stood at the bedside for a moment, watching him, worried and then sat down beside him. He took Rush’s hand and squeezed it gently. It took Rush a few minutes to realize what was happening. He blinked, tried to sit up, but was clearly caught by a wave of dizziness. He fell back. 

“Hang on. You’re probably dehydrated. Just. Wait there.” He found Rush’s canteen across the room and discreetly sniffed the contents as he opened it. Definitely water. He brought it to him. “Drink.” Rush tried again to sit up.

“Should I get T.J.?” Young asked, as he propped Rush up so he could swallow a few mouthfuls of water.

Rush shook his head weakly and laid back, handing the canteen to Young. He closed his eyes. He didn’t speak. 

Rush looked tired, sick and so broken that Young really did not want to leave him alone. He checked his watch. 23:37. It was late and he didn’t think Rush would appreciate a night in the infirmary anyway. He moved over to Rush’s computer and closed it. He dimmed the light with the switch at the end of the wall. Then he sat on the end of Rush’s bed. The bed was quite wide, and he really didn’t want to leave Rush alone. He sighed. He kicked off his boots and padded over to lock the door. He gingerly laid down on top of the covers, at least a good foot from the other man. He held his breath. Rush didn’t move, didn’t say anything. Didn’t complain. Young, despite the chill and lack of pillow, fell asleep within minutes, hoping no one would need him until morning.

-

Young’s watch alarm went off at 05:30 and he started awake, disoriented. Rush was curled in a fetal position to his right, clutching his pillow and twisting and muttering. “No… stop… I won’t tell you anything.” Then he screamed and flailed suddenly. Young realized he was having a nightmare, probably of the Lucian Alliance. He leaned over and shook Rush’s shoulder. 

“Nick. Nick. Rush!” Nothing. He shook him harder. Rush flailed and shouted wordlessly. “You’re on Destiny. You’re okay.” 

Rush gradually came to. He looked confused and then saw Young and looked surprised. He shook his head.

“Yeah. Still here,” Young rumbled.

Rush swallowed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah,” he said, not looking at Young. “Yeah. What time is it?”

“05:30. You should sleep more. If you can. I’ll sent T.J. by later. I think she has something that would help. You know, with the nightmares. Chemically-induced dreamless sleep can do wonders.” He touched Rush’s shoulder. Rush didn't flinch; he just nodded.

It hit Young that he and Rush were sitting up in bed together. It should have been weird. But after the emotion of the previous night, it wasn’t, and that in and of itself struck Young as odd. 

“You gonna be okay?”

Rush nodded again, still not looking at Young, who was getting up. He put his boots on in silence, and with a last look at Rush, who had pulled his knees up as if he was trying to hide behind them, headed to the door. 

“Colonel?”

“Yeah?” Young turned.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” He gave Rush half a lopsided smile. “Take the day to res,t if you can. Go to hydroponics and get some fresh air. Take care of yourself. I’ll see you later.”

Rush nodded. And then Young headed out into the hallway, with a silent prayer that no one was around to see him. The coast was clear. He hurried to his own quarters, his mind spinning. Well, this was new. Maybe it would be good. Maybe they would be friends. Maybe they were friends now. He shook his head. Time would tell.


	3. Turning Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a few weeks since Rush fell apart and Young picked up the pieces. How will Rush respond when the tables are turned?
> 
> Set after The Hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find Rush's POV quite difficult. This chapter is also unbeta'd so please be gentle.

Rush was angry. What the hell was Young thinking, taking Scott’s place in the rescue op? They needed him on the damn ship. He stared at the console in the gateroom anxiously as the gate dialled to resume radio contact. Scott was almost thirty years younger than Young. Surely he was better place to fight whatever six-legged monstrosity had hauled off two Johansen and Reynolds and destroyed the camp. Between him and Greer, and now Varro, there was just no fucking need for it. He remembered what Young had told him weeks ago, on the floor of his quarters, “you volunteer for the dangerous missions…” He fervently hoped that wasn’t what this was. He was definitely going to have that conversation with Young when he got back. If he got back. Rush’s gut twisted. He hated feeling like this. When had he begun to care whether Young came back through the gate? It wasn’t so long ago he would have been hoping for something to happen, for Young to get left behind or incapacitated or something, so that Scott could take over. He didn’t like remembering that. It felt wrong now. It had always been wrong, but the line between self-preservation and self-service was a blurry one, and easy enough to cross when he considered that Young had left him on a planet months ago. But things were, well, different now. Young was important to the mission. He understood. He’d planned to stay. Scott…. Scott had followed Chloe. Scott had a son on earth. And Scott was young. He’d not realized quite how young, but it disturbed him slightly that the man was only a year older than Eli and sometimes, sometimes, even his greater life experience and military training didn’t contribute to his perspective. He might be more mature in some ways, but he was still on the wrong side of thirty—or forty. Given his choice, he’d prefer to have Johansen in charge. But she was down on the planet. She might not be coming back. 

Wait.

Was that it? Was she the reason Young had barrelled through the gate as fast as he could grab his pack and his gun? Rush narrowed his eyes and stared blankly at his notebook, as he listened for a crackle from the radio.

Surely not. That would be, what was the word? Fraternization? She was under his command. She was at least twenty years younger than him. He was married, wasn’t he? At least, he had been. For some reason, he’d noticed Young had stopped wearing his wedding band a few months ago. It was not the kind of detail that was important. Not really. He supposed it was part of surveying the emotional states of the significant members of the crew. That’s why his brain had picked it up. Certainly he wasn’t terribly interested in Young’s personal life. Besides, if anything it was a good thing. One less reason to go back to earth. It had probably contributed to his decision to stay on Destiny.

T.J.. Young. Hmm. That could be important.

And holy freaking shit. The baby. 

No. 

Surely not. 

Surely…. 

Goddammit, they were supposed to check in. Why was the radio silent?! He grabbed it angrily.

“Colonel Young, this is Rush. Over.”

The radio crackled. “Rush. This is Varro. We’re sending Young back through the gate. He’s pretty injured. Lost a lot of blood. He’s on his feet and I patched him up, but whoever has medical training should be on deck when he gets through.”

Shit. Fucking. Shit. Rush felt a spike of fear, quickly followed by anger. At Young. At himself. At the fucking alien lion or whatever the fuck it was. Goddamnit. He swallowed a growl.

“What happened?!”

“We were ambushed. He’ll fill you in. Greer and I are heading on. We’ll check in in an hour. Over.”

“Copy that. Shutting down the gate now.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He banged on the console and the wormhole dissipated. He radioed Park and Chloe and barked at them to get to the gate with a kino sled. And then he held his breath, waiting for a sigil to light up and the familiar sound of the gate gearing up to dial in.

He waited. And waited. And tried to do math. He stared at old equations and twisted the wires of his glasses. He pulled up information about ship’s systems and tried to give a shit about power levels and Jesus fucking Christ where was he?

Finally. Finally, he heard the gate and saw the symbols illuminate and the wormhole blared into existence, just as the two women arrived with the sled in tow.

He let out a breath and his stomach sank in anticipation. 

“What took you so long?” he snapped.

Park gave him a startled look and looked upset. “It’s a big ship,” she said apologetically. “We came as fast as we could.” 

“I’m sure that would have been of great comfort to Colonel Young as he bled out on the floor,” he said acidly.

Chloe pushed back. “Hey. Back off. We are all doing our best.”

“Yes, well—” whatever snide passive aggressive thing he had been about to say was cut off by the team tumbling through the gate. 

Thank god. Young was standing, supported by an officer whose name Rush could never remember. He looked pale and bloody, but not deathly. 

Part of him wanted to bolt across the gateroom to see how bad Young really was. But his pride stopped him. He forced himself to walk over, albeit quicker than his normal pace. Chloe and Park were already helping lay Young down on the kino sled. 

Young’s eyes were on him from the moment he stepped into the gateroom, and Rush squirmed a little under the gaze. He was so anxious. Too anxious. And he knew Young was better at reading people than he gave him credit for. He met his eyes guardedly, hoping to mask it. 

But his voice cracked ever so slightly and his accent flared and he knew from the narrowing of Young’s eyes that he wasn’t fooling him. “An’ what have you done to yerself this time?”

Young snorted. “Nice to see you too.” His mouth quirked, as if he found Rush amusing. Park and Chloe shot each other a look. Both women were used to the verbal tussling of the two men, but the energy this time was palpably different. 

Rush bristled. “Best get on with it then,” he said to Chloe and Park, waving in the direction of the infirmary with as much nonchalance as he could muster. He was not going to follow them. He was not. He was going to stay in the gateroom and monitor things and wait for the team and check in with Brody and Eli, and… fuck. Young was still looking at him. He looked in pain and tired and a little… hurt? His heart twisted. He hated the sight of Young battered and weak almost as much as he was relieved by his presence. 

In his head, there was a voice that dearly wanted to shout at Young: “You scared the shit out of me, and you’re an idiot, and why the fuck did you go down there, and we need you for the mission, and I really, really don’t want to do this on my own.” His self-contempt flared. Why was he being so emotional about Young? 

“You should have sent Scott,” he said flatly, and turned on his heels. “I’ll be on the bridge.”

As he stalked away, he heard Chloe say, “Don’t mind him. He likes to pretend we can’t tell that he cares.” 

Young gave a curt laugh in agreement. “Yeah. I know.” But he sounded sad. 

\---------

Later, when Johansen and Reynolds were back on board, and the mess was brimming with excitement and relief and grief and relaxed alcohol rations for the evening, Rush was hiding. He had taken his plate and canteen and disappeared to the observation deck with his laptop. He rarely came here, because it was usually occupied. But with the distraction of the party, he figured he’d have a chance to enjoy the stars alone.  
He was halfway through his meal and a shot or two through his canteen when he noticed another person, who was sitting on a bench across the room, place a plate on the floor with a clatter. It was Young. Rush shifted, making just enough noise so that the other man would notice. He did, turning at the sound of the stool’s squeak. 

“Hey,” Young said, standing and crossing the room. “I guess we’re both hiding.”

Rush strained for an acerbic and witty comeback, but found nothing. He was too tired. And the pseudo-vodka was mellowing his nerves.

“It appears that way,” he said simply. “You were here first. I can go.”

Young shook his head. “No. Stay. We, uh, don’t have to talk,” he said, in a way that suggested he was hoping they would. 

Rush looked at Young’s bruises and bandages. “You should be sitting down.”

“Join me?” 

Rush considered it for a moment. He could decline. Normally he would. Normally, Young wouldn't ask. After he’d met Young’s awkward invitation to play chess together with a blank stare months ago, Young had stopped trying to draw Rush into social interactions. They didn’t tend to talk outside of ship-related business. They had never really had a personal conversation until that night in Rush’s quarters a few weeks ago when Rush broke down after Mandy was quarantined. They had never talked about Rush’s meltdown, nor the unprecedented emotional intimacy that they’d shared. Rush had expected Young to use his vulnerability against him, as an excuse to monitor him more closely, put him and his work under greater surveillance. For the first few days after, he’d found himself looking for hidden kinos, listening for someone following, eavesdropping on conversations to ascertain whom Young had told and what. Instead, the opposite had happened. There’d been more space. Fewer questions. More nods. Once, about a week after, Young had caught his eye on the bridge when his team was huddled over a console at the far end of the room and quietly asked, “You good?” Rush had searched Young’s gaze and tone for hints of pity or patronizing. There’d been none. Even so, when so he had responded simply, “well enough,” he’d expected Young to keep asking, to try to get him talking. But Young had just pressed his lips together into a subtle smile, nodded faintly and said “good” and turned back to his work. No “I’m here if you aren’t,” no “you can talk to me, you know”; nothing that suggested he didn’t believe him.  
Later, he noticed their dynamics had shifted. Young was less pushy and demanding. Rush had a little more patience. Some of the defensiveness on both their parts had faded, and conversations were less exhausting. He wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened or why it had helped, but he’d felt a little less off balance. Until today, when Young’s irresponsible decision to lead the rescue team had nearly cost him his life. It was a poor command decision and it made him angry. Young had finally started to feel like an ally, and it had given him hope he was going to be able to pursue Destiny’s mission without constant roadblocks—indeed, with space and, even actual support. On the deck of an alien ship he’d told Young that he wanted him to work with him and he’d meant it. But it wasn’t until recently that it felt like a real possibility, and now that it did he really didn’t want to have to start all over again, either because Young was dead and or because he was far less grounded than he’d given the impression of being lately. The thought of Young returning to the impetuous, emotional, self-doubting mess he’d when they arrived on Destiny was repellent to Rush. He needed to know what was going on with Young, whether he wanted to or not. For the mission. So he accepted.

“Yeah.” He closed his laptop and picked up his canteen and followed Young back to his bench. They sat and stared forward in silence for a few moments, watching the sky. Rush was considering how to broach the topic when Young spoke.

“So why are you hiding?” Young asked.

“I hate parties.”

Young laughed. “You don’t.”

Rush snorted. “Yes, I do. Too many people. Too loud. Small talk. Or worse, drunk talk.”

Young sighed. “Yeah. They need it though. Some down time. Some fun.” He took a sip from his canteen. “Something to help them forget.”

“What are you drinking to forget, Colonel?”

Young sputtered, the liquid catching in his throat. “Jesus, Rush, you don’t beat around the bush.”

“No. It’s inefficient.”

Young laughed again, wincing slightly at the pain in his ribs. He paused for a moment, considering. “Fine. Honestly. All of it.” 

Rush fought an urge to roll his eyes at Young’s non-answer. “And more specifically? What now?” Young had seemed like he’d wanted to talk. Why was this so hard?

Young took in a breath carefully. He swallowed. “Something I wish I hadn’t seen. But I know I have no right be upset about.”

“That’s unhelpfully vague.”

“Why do you want to know?”

Rush chose his words carefully. He’d already told Young in no uncertain terms that he should have sent Scott instead to the planet. There was no sense in backtracking now. Sometimes the truth was easier. “Something affected your judgement today.”

Young sighed. “Yeah,” he breathed. “No arguments here. We lost a lot of people.“ He looked at Rush, flinching slightly. “Go ahead. I deserve it.” 

Rush stared at him. Is this why Young had asked him to sit? So he could berate him? He felt a little sick as he recognized Young’s body language. He looked like he was bracing to be hit. It was unexpected and unsettling to think Young was afraid of him. Rush realized he much preferred Young fighting back, hard, against his criticism. The conflict was familiar, expected, respectable. Young lying down and taking it—no, inviting it? This attitude offended him on an aesthetic level and it certainly wouldn’t make for a productive conversation. Besides, the loss of the Lucian Alliance members wasn’t what Rush was talking about. That was neither the problem, nor Young’s fault. They needed their medic and so the losses were acceptable. But he knew that line of reasoning wouldn’t work on Young. So he flat out ignored Young’s bait and tried a different approach. 

“I also think you want to tell me.” 

Young’s shoulders slumped. “No. I don’t think I do.” He sipped his canteen. After a moment, he said, “Well, I do, but I think it’s a bad idea.”

What was that supposed to mean? Rush bristled at the thought that he’d opened up to Young and apparently Young expected it to stay one-way. Here they were, positions reversed, with Young obviously distressed about the loss of the Lucian Alliance personnel and something else he was dancing around, and clearly wanting to talk, but also flat out admitting he didn’t think he should confide in Rush in return. It was confusing. His fear that Young was going to use their earlier conversation against him resurfaced, and he found himself questioning whether Young’s concern even been genuine, or if it had always been just part of a power-play. 

Rush had to admit that sometimes he had a difficult time reading people. He assumed ulterior motives and tried to guard against them by manipulating people. This strategy tended to work well in political situations, with people like Telford and Wray who were used to interpersonal power games. But Young—Young was different. He was painfully honest sometimes, and when he was being dishonest, he didn’t have a head for half-truths and misinformation. He just withheld information. Rush considered what he’d heard about the botched attempt to outwit the Lucian Alliance and the disastrous operation with the Langarans. Young wasn’t good at lying. A small angry corner of his brain spoke up with “what if that’s what he wants you to think?”. But he considered the weight of the evidence as he looked at Young, who had leaned forward, head in his hands, elbows on knees. The man looked positively miserable. He might not be talking, but he wasn’t exactly hiding either. No. Young hadn’t played him. Maybe there was another reason for his reticence. 

“Why?” Rush asked simply.

Young blinked and shook his head slightly, jarred out of the silence. He looked confused.

“Why what?”

“You said it's a bad idea to tell me. Why?” 

Young swallowed. “It’s not….” He paused for a minute. “Relevant. It’s petty. And it’s personal, and it certainly won’t raise your opinion of me.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and he leaned back into the couch, sighing. He took a drink. “Not that, really, your opinion can get much lower.” He gave a humourless laugh.

Rush blinked in surprise. Young was embarrassed? He cared what Rush thought of him. And yet, at the same time, he was evidently set on a masochistic slide into self-pity to which he was inviting Rush as an accomplice. 

Rush despised self-pity. 

There was a time when he would have gladly agreed with Young—hell, there was a time when Young’s statement would have been true, and he would have welcomed the man’s admission of incompetence and inability. But it felt tired and old, and, well, at this stage, completely beside the point. He had to shift him out of this mood so they could talk about today in a way that would be useful— and if he was really honest with himself, he profoundly disliked seeing Young wallow. And so Rush found himself finally saying something encouraging to the man he’d spent the better part of several years undermining. 

“On the contrary, Colonel, there is considerably more space for my opinion to fall than there was when arrived on Destiny.” Rush shifted uncomfortably.

“Wait,” Young said, looking at him, his demeanour lightening in surprise. “Are you drunk? Because that almost sounded like a compliment.” He sounded…. Amused?

“Well,” Rush replied evenly, attempting to encourage the newfound levity, “we have flown through a star. Anything is possible on this side of the universe. Apparently.” His tone was playfully sarcastic and not unkind. His mouth quirked.

Young laughed again, but this time there was a smile that reached eyes and lit up his face, his dark mood evaporating. Rush felt the tension in his chest ease a little. Young clapped his hand on Rush’s shoulder and passed him the canteen. Rush had his own canteen, but he found himself taking Young’s and drinking all the same. He realized he hadn’t flinched at Young’s touch. 

He cleared his throat, choosing his words carefully. “This thing you’re trying to forget, it’s about L.T. Johansen, isn’t it?” Young’s vagueness and embarrassment lent further credence to his theory that today’s events may have been about Young’s feelings for her. He supposed there was a kind of symmetry or evenness to his need to know. After all, Young had confronted him about Mandy.

Young immediately stiffened beside him.  
“You don’t have to tell me,” Rush said quickly, suddenly worried Young would leave. “But you can. If you want to.” He swallowed nervously. “As you so aptly reminded me, you are only human.”

Young looked at him as if he’d grown an extra head or suddenly turned into a Nakai.  
Suspicion crossed his features briefly. He stared at Rush, studying him. Rush handed him back the canteen and he accepted it.

“Yeah,” he breathed, taking a swallow. “That obvious, huh?” The colour in his face rose as he spoke. He started at the sky, avoiding Rush’s eyes.

“No, actually, it’s not. But I can’t imagine why else you bolted off the ship instead of sending Scott.”

“She’s our only medic. She’s important.” Young protested slightly.

“She is. But you are the commander of this ship.” 

Young snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

What the hell? He’d just admitted….. Fine. He was not going to stay here and be shamed by Young. He shot to his feet, angry. Young caught his forearm. “No. Sit. Stay. I'm sorry. That was uncalled for.” He looked down. “It’s nice — weird, but nice— that you care.”

“I…” Rush wanted to deny it. He looked at the considerable remorse on Young’s face. He sat down. Ugh. Young said he was a lot of work?

“You are important to this mission, Colonel. Whether I care or not.”

“Alright. Fair enough. That’s a hell of an improvement from where I’m sitting, so let’s leave it at that. And for god’s sake, call me Everett. Please.” Young took another drink, before passing the canteen to Rush again.

It was Rush’s turn to stare. God, it was exhausting trying to keep up with Young. Where had that come from? He’d never considered using Young’s—Everett’s—given name, even though Young had used both “Nicholas” and “Nick” last time they’d had a personal conversation. He hadn’t objected then. He didn’t feel a need to object now. He supposed this was what they were moving towards. Even if it was uncomfortable, even if a large part of him wanted to bolt, he knew deep in his gut that he needed Everett Young if he was going to complete Destiny’s mission. That would require communication, respect and a measure of trust. That meant things like using each other’s first names, awkward personal conversations and dealing with each other’s...quirks? Pathologies? Feelings? A working relationship was still a relationship, and the close quarters on Destiny, even without the constant life-or-death situations, made the need to manage relationships between crewmembers even more acute. He supposed Camille had been right in that respect from day one. He also supposed that’s what Young meant when he called him a lot of work. 

Make no mistake, however, Everett Young was also a lot of work. That much was obvious to him now.

Nicholas Rush had spent most of his life avoiding relationships, and he told himself he preferred it that way. People, as a general rule, were stupid and uninteresting and far too much effort. But what happened with Mandy had started to make him think that maybe, maybe, he didn’t prefer it that way. He’d leapt at the chance to be with her. He didn’t like to admit it, and he tried to ignore it, but he was, in word, lonely—it had started to occur to him that there was a distinct possibility that this state wasn’t as much a matter of having a preference for being alone so much as the possibility that he was actually kind of shit at relationships.  
Rush despised the idea that he was bad at anything, but it was hard to argue with the numbers. He supposed he would have to work at this problem like any other, and it was patently obvious that Young’s version of a working relationship necessitated some kind of rapport, connection and common ground. Maybe they should play chess after all. 

“Alright, Everett,” he said, the emphasis sincere. He took the canteen, took a sip, passed it back to Young. 

Young smiled again. “See, Nick, that wasn’t so bad.” He looked awfully pleased with himself. It was almost… cute? Rush shook his head at the thought and stared out at the stars. The alcohol must be getting to him.

Beside him, Young’s good mood shifted away as quickly has it had come. This time, Rush wasn’t taken off guard. It occurred to him that the alcohol was hitting him too.

“It threw me tonight, seeing her with Varro. More than I want to admit.” 

Ah. He was right. “So you two…?” Rush asked delicately.

“Yeah,” Young admitted, ashamed. “But it’s been over between us since before we arrived on this godforsaken ship.” He paused and gave Rush a hard look. “Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Especially not Camille.”

Rush nodded. Young continued.

“I have no right to be hurt, or jealous. But I am.” He sighed. “And it just makes me feel even more guilty. Fuck. She should be with someone like Varro, if that’s what she wants. ” 

Rush understood guilt, but the rest of Young’s sentence confused him. “A violent mercenary? Surely—“

“What? No! I mean, someone who can protect her.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“And you were injured, and sent back early…” Rush suppressed a flare of contempt for the competitive alpha-male nonsense that infused normative masculinity. There was obviously more going on here than Young’s wounded ego.

“No. Well. I mean, yes. I was. This time. But this time…” he trailed off.

“It’s not really about this time, is it?” 

Young shook his head. There were tears in his eyes. As it dawned on Rush that his speculation about Young being the father of T.J.’s baby might actually be correct, he found himself fervently wishing to be wrong. Because considered at close proximity, the possibility was nothing less than horrifying. It was one thing for Young to have lost crew members as a result of his decision not to vent the gate room during the Lucian Alliance attack, it was quite another for him to have lost his child. 

“She didn’t deserve that ordeal. Not that anyone does. But she’s had it hard enough. After….” Young stopped, his voice cracking. “That thing could have taken anyone. I just couldn’t bear… I had to go. Sending Scott was not an option. I owed it to her. I couldn’t just leave her there and wait. I’d already failed her once. Already lost— I couldn’t stand to lose her too.” 

“Too?” he asked quietly.

Young nodded, and sank his face into his hands.

Rush thought about Gloria. He thought about Mandy. His heart ached. He hadn’t been able to save them and when he’d admitted as much to Young, the man had said “I know,” with such depth. Now he knew why. 

Gingerly, Rush laid a hand on Young’s shoulder and with a gentleness that few women and no man had ever seen, he said simply, “I'm sorry.”

Young looked up at him, questioning.

“About your baby.”

Young squeezed his eyes shut and looked down. He nodded again, almost imperceptibly. His breath was uneven and his face streaked with stray tears. He was trying not to sob.

Rush didn’t remove his hand. Instead he squeezed Young’s shoulder slightly and with his left hand, he fished out of his trouser pocket the closest thing to a handkerchief that could be found on Destiny—a small piece of cloth he had been using to clean his glasses. He handed it to Young, who took it wordlessly. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“It was my fault,” Young said angrily.

Rush sighed. God knew, he knew what that was like. “No. Everett. It wasn’t.”

“Yes. If I had vented the gateroom, or—“

“No. Everett. I know you’ll think that no matter what I or anyone else tells you. But I won’t lie to you. Not about this. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Kiva’s.” 

The anguish on Young’s face told him that he didn’t believe him and Rush wasn’t the slightest bit surprised. He felt the same way about Mandy. It was his fault—no matter what Young had said about Simeon. There were some feelings no amount of reason or logic could unravel.

“I dream about her. A lot,” Young said quietly. “Sometimes, she looks like a photo I saw of T.J. as a toddler. Other times she looks like my niece. She’s sweet and good. She plays with her cousins and her grandma. She likes the swing in the backyard of the house where I grew up. And she loves her mother…”

Rush’s throat tightened and he felt his own tears well up as the impact of the loss of Young’s child spread out before him vividly. For the first time since they’d started working together, he found himself feeling genuine admiration for the man because he had kept going through this tragedy and all of the pain and guilt that went with it. No wonder Destiny’s simulation had shut him down. It was, in retrospect, impressive that he’d been able to pull himself together at all. He was also worried—because he knew what Everett was going to say next and he wasn’t about to let him go down that road. 

“She would have loved her father too.”

Young shook his head, sobbing. “No. It’s always me who—“

God. There was tortured and then there was Everett fucking Young. Rush was no stranger to guilt-fuelled nightmares, but this was a new level of cruel. Rush cut him off. “You’re not a monster, Everett. You may be many things. But you are not that. You didn’t kill her. The Lucian Alliance did.” 

“I tried to kill you, and you don’t think I'm a monster?” Young said, in abject disbelief.

He had a point. It was a strange twist of fate that he sat here comforting the man who had left him to die. But Young had comforted him, and he was hardly innocent. Besides, Rush genuinely didn’t believe Young was monstrous—certainly not the kind of monstrous that hurt children. He would know—he’d seen enough of violent fathers for one lifetime. 

“That was different,” Rush replied.

“How?” Young challenged.

“Technically, you left me on a planet.”

“Semantics.”

“No. As I recall, we did the same thing to the Lucian Alliance members not too long ago. We left our own crew members on the obelisk planet.”

Young stared at him.

“Also, there was, to be fair, an element of self defence,” Rush continued. 

“You’re really going to argue with me about this?” Young protested, clearly trying to wrap his head around Rush’s words.

“You argued with me.”

Young sighed, exhausted. “I suppose I did.”

“So, no. Not a monster. Human. Not that that doesn’t have its own share of problems.”

Young snorted in agreement. 

“There’s one more thing I need to know.”

“Yeah?”

“This wasn’t you volunteering for a dangerous mission, hoping you wouldn’t come back?”

Young shook his head. “Not this time. It’s actually, uh, been a while.”

“Good,” Rush said, with a faint smile.

Young looked at Rush, a little surprised. Then he ventured. “And you? Are you…?”

“Better.”

“Good.” 

They stared out at the streaks of stars as the ship sped onwards in FTL, passing Young’s canteen back and forth in silence, until it ran out. When it did, Rush passed his back and forth. Destiny’s lights continued to dim. A few times, they heard a rush of voices as partygoers trickled back to their quarters. It sounded like things were winding down, and eventually a cluster of perseverant drinkers ventured into the observation deck. Seeing a bench was occupied, they wandered to the far side of the room. Rush looked at Young.

“Should go,” Rush said, a little unevenly, his accent stronger.

“Yeah,” Young agreed, wobbling as he stood. He braced his arm on the back of the couch. 

Rush studied him for a moment. “D’ye need a hand, Colonel?”

“Everett,” Young insisted, shaking his head.

Rush snorted. “Fine, Everett.”

“Um. No. I’m...” Young took a few experimental steps, definitely not in a straight line. “Fine.”

“Oh fer fuck’s sake.” Rush scooped his laptop in left hand and slid his right arm under Young’s left arm and tugged him forward towards the door.

The corridors were mercifully deserted as Rush hauled Young to his quarters. Young leaned into Rush gratefully and apologized several times. 

“Dinna worry about it. Ye’d do the same fer me.” 

“Yes. I would. I did. ‘Cept you weren’t drunk.”

“No.”

“Still.”

“Yes. C’mon. We’re here.” Rush banged the door controls and pulled Young into the room. Young tried to make for the couch.

“No,” said Rush, shaking his head. “Yer back will hate ye in the mornin’. This’ll be a bad enough hangover as it is.” He redirected him and deposited him on the bed. Young immediately lay back, his feet still on the floor. Rush searched the room for a cup, filled it up with water in the bathroom and placed it on the nightstand. 

“Ye’ll wanna drink tha,’ he said, as he began to untie Young’s boots. 

“Mmmhmm, “ replied Young. 

Rush pulled his boots off and set them by the couch.

“Nick?” Young said, still lying down, feet on the floor.

“Aye?” he answered, dragging Young up towards the pillows.

“I wish she was here,” Young said, his voice full of grief as he curled onto his right side, away from Rush, and the tears that he had managed to hold back on the observation deck started to escape. 

Rush wasn’t sure exactly to which “she” Young was referring, but it didn’t matter. “I know,” he said gently, sitting down cautiously on the edge of the bed, beside Young’s back. He put his hand on Young’s shoulder. 

“Yer gonna be okay. It’ll be better in tha mornin’.” He got up and turned towards the door.

It was a lie, but it was the kindest lie Rush had ever told Young. He didn't regret it as he made his way through the deserted and dark corridors to his own bed, drunk and sad, and also wishing she was there.


	4. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some quiet reflection on their own.

The corridor was blessedly quiet as Rush laid the CO2 removal foam from Novus on a crate to trim it to fit the scrubbers. Such elegant material. Pity there had been so much drama to retrieve it.   
The whole Novus thing made Rush damn fucking uncomfortable. Not because he wasn’t there—contrary to Volker’s irritating theory—but because it was backward looking. It had nothing to do with Destiny’s mission and it was obscenely distracting for the team. All of the mess of relationships, and who ended up with whom and what other versions of themselves did. If he had to listen to Eli’s romantic ramblings any more, he was going to lose it. 

Supplies. Information. Move on.

At least Young wasn’t taken in by the nonsense. In fact, he seemed almost as uncomfortable as Rush. In their meetings with Wray, Young had surprised him by being been uncharacteristically detached. Normally, he’d expect the man to be the first to make a bleeding heart plea to take on refugees from the expedition planet. But no matter how hard Eli had campaigned and Wray had argued, Young had refused. It had been something of a pleasure to watch. Ever since their conversation on the observation deck, Young had seemed calmer, more sure of himself, and Rush was relieved that Young finally seemed to have grasped the concept of the greater good. When the drones attacked, and they were forced to leave their people behind, Rush had braced for a fight. Scott, Wray, Greer and Eli were down on the planet. Precedence had suggested that Young was going to turn the ship around regardless of the risk to pull some suicide mission to get their people back.

He didn’t. Instead he stared Park and Volker and told them Rush was right.

It was definitely new. Something had definitely changed.

He’d found himself breathing a little easier around the man. He felt…… happy wasn’t quite the word for it, but that probably had more to do with his general emotional baseline being somewhere between anxious and numb. Reassured, perhaps? The kind of calm that comes from feeling seen and heard by someone who, for better or worse, has power over you. Even if you have power over them in turn.

Trust?

Perhaps this dynamic meant he could stop hoarding information, stop broadcasting an air of superiority and know-it-all-ness.   
He hadn’t realized how tiring it was until he had the opportunity to relax, put his head down, and work uninterrupted, unquestioned, quietly.

On the one had, he resented the time and attention the Novus people were taking up, but he had to admit, turning the foam over in his hands and sliding his knife through it, found it refreshing to be free to problem solve, alone.

They’d needed lime for the scrubbers. He’d said it over and over again. But the rest of the science team was too distracted, so he had to do it himself. That in and of itself wasn’t new. He often had to do things himself because the people around him refused or couldn’t understand the significance of the information he presented. This time, however, Young understood and Young had his back. They were manifestly on the same page, and so he’d been able to leave the rest of the science team to their blustering and blundering through the Novus database, Wray to the politics, and Young to the unenviable task of overseeing the whole mess of accommodating the new population on board.

He’d figured out Novans supply categorization code within an hour and moved swiftly through the rows of crates. The rest of the Destiny crew had fussed and oo-ed and aww-ed about everything they opened, but he'd found that it didn’t bother him, as long as they got stuff up to the loading area for the shuttle. Eventually he’d found the foam and hauled crates into the elevator. No one had even asked what he’d found or why it was important to have so much of it. When Park asked in surprise if he’d brought back crates of the single most important resource they had found on Novus, he was only mildly irritated that, once again, the crew took his efforts for granted. Still, the important thing was that the problem was fixed. 

Besides, if he was really honest with himself, the look of relief on Young’s face and his growl of a thank you had made it worth it. He still remembered the feel of Young’s calloused hand clasping his in a handshake and the palpable gratitude radiating off of him. It warmed something in his chest. 

Now, reflecting on it the simplicity and ease gave him a pang of regret—how much time had they wasted with their arguing and backstabbing? How many injuries, accidents and casualties could they have avoided? He pushed the thought aside aggressively. He and Young and the crew were here now. They were alive and they were working together and moving forward. Regrets were useless. He couldn’t change the past and he understood now the futility of trying to control ship operations. Fortunately, now that Young had stepped up, he didn’t need to. It felt freeing. He had space now to problem solve, to explore, to test hypotheses. He supposed this was why the SGC was structured the way it was—military and science handling their own spheres of expertise, relying on the other without question to do their job well. Case in point: Greer looked out for him during the earthquake on the planet; he made sure Greer—and everyone else—got to keep breathing on Destiny. 

Eli, on the other hand, Eli was starting to worry him. The more confident he got, the more attention from Young and the science team he seemed to want. For the most part, Rush was happy to let him have it. He was, without doubt, a brilliant young man and it would be hypocritical of Rush to put his own pride before expediency and efficiency. Eli had a better relationship with the science team without question, and he was comparable to Rush in mathematical ability, and—though it pained him to admit it—sometimes even superior. He didn’t begrudge Eli this new stage, this coming into his own, but he was concerned. He’d had graduate students like Eli, who came into their doctoral programs nervous and unsure and constantly looking for approval. Then they’d find a measure of self-confidence and be in everyone’s face with their sparkling achievements. It was the prerogative of youth to be excited about newfound ability and feel invincible. Inevitably, however, there would be some kind of crash, because they would have to realize that even genius has limits and genius can make mistakes. However, the stakes were low in academia. No one was going to die over who got first author on a paper, or if another scholar halfway across the world disproved your theorem. When—not if—Eli made mistakes, the consequences could be severe. He worried that, in their enthusiasm for a personable and caring go-to scientist, Young and the others were going to give him too much slack. Eli was going to make costly, even fatal, mistakes if he wasn’t careful, if his work wasn’t checked. They’d already lived through that when dialing Earth from within a star. He needed mentorship and the wisdom of experience. Eli could have the spotlight. Rush would check his work. He wondered if he could have a conversation with Young that didn’t sound like he was jealous of the boy and passive-aggressively underlining his own importance. Probably not. Best just to leave the team dynamics to play out and keep an eye on things from the background. 

 

\----

Young was exhausted and everything hurt, but fuck if the damn beef jerky Greer had brought back wasn’t exponentially improving his mood. It occurred to him just how much better they’d probably feel on a regular basis if only they could manage to get something decent to eat. He swallowed the Novan version of Tylenol that T.J. had given him and tried to stare at the pile of paperwork on his desk.

His heart ached to think of T.J. He had refused, much to Eli’s irritation, to watch the kino footage of their doubles. The grief over Carmen was still too much and he missed T.J. acutely sometimes. He didn’t need to see happy footage of another version of himself holding their baby. In a few days they would drop off their ‘descendants’ and hopefully Eli would let it go. The young man’s enthusiasm was wearing on him. He had been around the SGC too long to put too much weight on alternate versions and timelines. What mattered was this crew on Destiny, right now. He didn’t have the capacity to give a damn about a whole civilization and it was weird as fuck to see what another him had done. Eli kept saying “they’re us” and Camille was all behind him, but Young couldn't’ see it. This was the problem with green civilians. Though, to be fair, some of his military personnel were falling into the romanticization too. If he wasn’t careful, it would get complicated. He told his crew to be polite, but to avoid socializing with their passengers. The last thing he needed was friendships or romances sprouting up and more people petitioning to stay on this failing ship. He couldn’t handle any more people. Hell, if folks wanted to leave, he might just let them. 

He hadn’t liked refusing the Novans and taking their supplies, but he was unimpressed with their attempt to guilt trip him to bring them on board. If they wanted supplies for passage they could have said so up front. Camille had scowled and given him a lecture about ethics, and he’d purposely tuned out, nodding at appropriate intervals and then cutting her off with “I’ll take it under consideration.” 

He was immensely glad that she had appointed herself ambassador to Yaozu and the others. The last thing he wanted to do was people wrangle a whole new set of people. 

It was only a few more days. 

Thank god Rush got it. He’d been worried that the scientist would want to study their technology or otherwise get sucked into the knowledge acquisition aspect of this chance meeting. But Rush was distinctly uninterested. He was practically hostile to attempts to get closer to the Novans and their civilization. Young wondered if it would have been different if his double had gone through too. Still, he’d seen the dispassionate way he’d interacted with his double when they came across the second Destiny and decided that Rush, like him, probably felt that this was a potentially dangerous digression—supplies and information aside. And fucking hell, the supplies were crucial. He sighed, thinking of the CO2 scrubbing foam. It irked him that Rush had had been the only one on the science team to take their most immediate predicament seriously. He should probably talk to the team at some point. He was grateful, profoundly grateful, that Rush had saved their asses. Again. What surprised him was Rush’s silence about the whole thing. Why wasn’t he reaming out the science team? He’d heard rumbles of a few sharp remarks, but they were disproportionate to the gravity of the situation. Rush had never held back on scathing remarks or raising his voice before. It was not just restrained, it was resigned.

Come to think of it, the man had been uncharacteristically quiet lately and if he was really honest about it, the shift in Rush’s behaviour was starting to worry him. It seemed the louder Eli got, the quieter Rush became. He supposed it could just be envy or wounded pride. Ever since the incident with Amanda Perry, the science team had been chafing against Rush’s leadership and rallying behind Eli, who seemed to be the only one completely willing to push back against Rush. It made a certain amount of sense. Genius aside, Eli’s youth and lack of formal training made him sceptical of procedures and hierarchies that Volker, Brody and Park were used to from years of SGC employment. Chloe was still working her way onto the team, and her relationship with Rush involved a certain amount of hero-worship, not unlike the way Scott used to look at Young, back on Icarus, before his own inadequacies had forced the younger man to temper his estimation of Young. Still, he wondered how Rush was taking the change in group dynamics. He’d surely noticed and it can’t possibly have been comfortable for him.

He wondered how Rush would react if he tried to have a non-crisis induced personal conversation with him. Would he think Young asking how he’s doing was prying? Would his pointing out Rush’s silence be taken as evidence of mistrust? They’d come so far in the last few weeks. Maybe he could try to invite Rush to do something social. Less of a formal check in, more continuing to extend peace branches. Maybe they could play chess? 

Making up his mind to try, he pushed aside the paperwork and headed for the bridge.


	5. Unexpected

As he rounded the corner to the CI room, Rush was surprised to hear voices coming from the room. There wasn’t a science team meeting scheduled. Damn. He’d been hoping to have the room to himself. The bridge being more popular for day-to-day operations meant that the CI room was frequently quiet and a good place to do some focussed work on Destiny’s systems or the Ancient database. 

“All we’re asking is for you to talk to him,” he heard Eli say. Rush stopped in his tracks and carefully leaned against the wall. This could be interesting.

“Camille already tried and it went nowhere,” Eli continued. “Actually, I think he got even meaner to Volker.”

So, Rush thought, recalling a nearly forgotten meeting with Camille, in her finest HR rep form, they were talking about him. 

Volker coughed awkwardly. “Um, to be fair, that actually might be my fault.” Volker proceeded to describe his confrontation with Rush quietly, low enough that Rush only caught a few words here and there. It sounded like Volker was embarrassed. Good.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Young sternly. 

At the sound of Young’s voice, Rush felt his heart rate pick up and his stomach sink. He had guessed that the person they were talking to was probably Young, but surprised himself in being disappointed that Young was taking their side. Of course Young was going to take their side. Why had he thought differently? 

But Young continued, “He saves our asses again and you, what, taunt him? What do you expect?” He sounded angry. At Volker.

Wait. This was not at all how this conversation was supposed to go.

“Well, considering he’s the one who endangered our asses in the first place, that argument—“ Volker protested, a little petulant.

Rush squeezed his eyes shut, heart falling. Surely Young would get on board with their complaints now.

“Enough,” Young cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it. We all have to live on this ship together now and dredging up old conflicts—”

“Old conflicts!” Volker interrupted shrilly. “He stranded us here in the first place!”

“What did I just say?” Young hissed menacingly.

Rush heard the thump and screech of Volker audibly backing up into a table.

 

Rush let out the breath he didn’t quite realize he was holding. Young was defending him. 

“C’mon Colonel. You gotta admit he’s pretty rough on Dale,” said Lisa.

“No, I don’t. In fact, I don’t care. You don’t have to like him. He doesn’t have to like you. You just have to work together.” Rush could practically hear Young scrubbing his hand over his face in frustration.

“But see that’s the problem” protested Eli. “It’s hard to work with someone who constantly, and I mean constantly, talks to you like you’re an idiot.”

“Well are you?” asked Young, deadpan.

“Am I …?” Eli trailed off, uncertain.

“An idiot?” Still deadpan.

“What?! No! I mean, I don’t think…”

“And you?” he challenged, clearly shifting attention to Volker.

“No! They don’t give Ph.D.s in astrophysics out…”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What?”

“Uh?” 

“You both know you’re not idiots. So what’s the problem?”

“Well…”

“Um…” 

“You’ve all faced worse than Rush’s bad moods. Grow a backbone. Get some thicker skin.”

“C’mon, you gotta admit it’s unprofessional,” said Volker.

“This whole situation is unprofessional. Deal with it.” Young’s tone brooked no disagreement, but of course Eli would push.

“But Colonel—” 

“I said, deal with it. And don’t go bothering Camille about this. She’s got enough on her plate right now.” 

Silence. Shuffling.

“Good. Glad to see we’re all on the same page. Now did you have any real problems to brief me on?”

Silence.

“Okay, then now can someone to tell me where to find Rush this time of day? I already checked the bridge.”

Indistinct murmuring.

“Maybe the math corridor?” said Lisa tentatively.

“Or he might be checking in with Brody about the CO2 converters?” said Eli.

“Alright. Thanks. Meanwhile, if you see or hear from Rush, tell him…”

Rather than get caught evesdropping, Rush took a deep breath and rounded the corner, striding into the room with forced nonchalance.

“Tell me what, Colonel?” He said casually, nodding at the three team members. He looked up and met Young’s eyes, aggressively ignoring the shufflings of embarrassment to his left.

Young looked surprised and uncertainty flashed across his features, but he recovered quickly. He raised eyebrows slightly as he quirked his mouth into a smile.  
“That I’d like to see you when you’re off your shift.”

“Ah. Certainly. Where will you be at 19:00 hours?” Rush asked, as if it were the most natural conversation in the world. He studiously ignored the intakes of breath and stares and forced himself to keep his eyes on Young. His heart pounded.

Young’s small smile broke into a full grin. “In my quarters, hiding from the overcrowded mess hall.”

“Fine. I’ll see you then.” He broke eye contact and looked down at the console, letting his hair fall across his face deliberately.

“Great. I’ll bring dinner,” said Young jovially. “Good luck with this lot,” he said with a smirk, patting Rush’s shoulder on his way to the door. 

Rush didn't squirm. Instead he felt…. warm? 

He glanced up at his team a surreptitiously through his hair and was rewarded with a swathe of blank stares of disbelief. He found himself unaccountably amused, instead of angry, and for the first time since arriving on the derelict ship, Dr. Nicholas Rush chuckled with genuine mirth.


	6. Chess Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of love and thanks [disaronnus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disaronnus/pseuds/disaronnus) for their amazing betareading!!

 

Young couldn’t help feeling a little self-conscious and awkward as he set the two plates down on the coffee table in his quarters.  

Rush was coming over. 

For dinner. 

At his invitation. 

It was bizarre and he felt… nervous? His hands were sweaty and his face felt hot. What was the weird twisting in his stomach about? How could he be nervous? He’d known the man going on four years. Okay, sure. Rush did make him nervous, but usually in a cold death kind of way, not in a fluttery, excited kind of way. He had a flash of a memory of an early date with Emily. The first time he’d had her over. He’d made pasta, the easiest, no-screw-up meal and spent $30 on a bottle of wine. 

He laughed at himself and scrubbed a hand over his face. God. What a thought. Him and Rush on a date? Was there anything in the universe more unlikely?

He inhaled sharply and a wave of anxiety passed over him. He checked his watch. Great. Five minutes  to go. Fuck it. He grabbed his canteen of Brody’s liquor and poured himself half a shot. And then another half. And downed it. Maybe Rush would be able to smell it, but he didn’t particularly care--technically they were off duty. He sighed, slipping behind his desk to stare blankly at paperwork and wait for the final minutes to tick by.

-

Rush showed up 15 minutes late, with his chessboard tucked under his arm and a pouch made from an old t-shirt full of chess pieces. He looked like he had (finally) washed his hair and wait…was that a new shirt? It was white, or at least it used to be, and it had buttons.

He handed Young his canteen of booze with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, as if daring Young to comment. 

“I thought we were working?” Young said, taking the canister.

Rush shrugged. “We’re off duty, aren’t we? Besides, I don’t know about you, but I need a drink after the science team’s utter nonsense lately.” He sounded tired and genuinely irritated and maybe somewhat resigned. It was unusually forthcoming. Not that Rush was particularly good at hiding his emotions, but there was almost always a performative quality to the intenseness of his expressions that seemed designed to push his arguments even further, to manipulate situations to his advantage. This was understated, open, unfiltered. Young felt himself relax. He’d seen this Rush before, not often, but he knew him. 

Young made a noise of agreement that was somewhere between a hum and a sigh. “Do you mean the constant complaining or the fawning over Novus recordings or the poor boundaries with our refugees?”

“All of the above, Colonel. All of the above,” Rush said, striding across the room and pitching himself onto the far couch, as if he was too weary and too pissed off to remain standing any longer. He tossed the chessboard and pieces onto the table, eyeing the dinner plate and apparently finding it unworthy of his attention. Instead, he picked up his cup and raised another eyebrow at Young, clearly expecting him to fill it. 

“Uh, sure. Right.” Young crossed the room as he unscrewed the lid,  and the leaned over the table as Rush held up his cup. 

“That’s better,” Rush said approvingly. 

“Wait til you taste it,” Young snorted as he poured himself some and sat down opposite Rush, who was already making a face at the bitterness and burn.

“What I wouldn’t give for a 12 year old single malt right now,” Rush sighed. “Fuck. And a cigarette.”

Young smiled. “One word: coffee.”

Rush chuckled. “Aye.” He inhaled deeply and leaned back into the couch, tipping his head back slightly to look at the ceiling. He seemed comfortable. At ease.

Young took in the sight of the other man stretched out in front of him, the long lines of his limbs and angles of his face, his hair catching the light from the Ancient fixtures and gleam of FTL through the windows.  Rush looked almost elegant in his uncharacteristic stillness. Elegant and delicate and even handsome.  It occurred to Young that if he hadn’t had firsthand experience of Rush’s strength and ruthlessness, it would be hard to understand the threat the man could pose when he wanted to. 

“So,” he ventured.  “The science team. Is it Eli?” 

Rush looked at Young and cocked his head.

“Volker?” Young guessed again.

“Closer,” Rush replied. 

“Both?”

“Yes,” Rush answered with a sigh.

“Alright, lay it on me. I’m ready.” Young braced himself slightly, as if he were preparing to catch a ball.

Rush launched–veritably launched–into a rant about his team’s incompetence and the inability to prioritize and see the big picture. It was dizzying to watch the sheer strength and speed of his mood shift. He was angry.  _ Really  _ angry, and Young had just given him permission to open the floodgates. After days of his silence, it was refreshing. Most of his diatribe seemed to revolve around Volker, with Eli fading into the background.

“Okay, I get it. You think Volker’s stupid. But you think lots of people are. Hell, compared to you, lots of people  _ are _ . What about him makes you so angry?”  Young had been wanting to ask Rush that for three years now, and it was a relief to think he might actually get an answer to it.

“He’s jealous and petty and resentful and profoundly unimaginative. It’s like he can’t even see he’s in a box, much less try to think his way out of it. He asks pointless, time-wasting questions and most of his energy seems to go into his absurd attempts to impress Dr. Park, who’s worth ten of him. At least she has the fucking good sense to have none of it. He’s just so bloody useless and  _ ordinary _ ,” he hissed, exasperated.

Rush leaned forward and poured himself another drink and downed it quickly before pouring another. He gestured to Young to hand his cup over, and Young complied, even though it wasn’t empty. Rush poured him what was at least another two shots before slamming the canteen down on the table. As he sat back on the couch, left hand tangled in his hair mid-comb, Rush seemed to curl in on himself a little and Young wondered if there was something more to Rush’s hatred of Volker. Something more...personal. He remembered Rush’s downright obsequiousness around the senators and dignitaries visiting Icarus. He’d found it painful to watch him trying so hard. Perhaps Volker reminded Rush of his own insecurities, of the pieces of himself he’d rather pretend didn’t exist, of who he was afraid of being. Useless and ordinary. 

Maybe Volker’s words about the other Destiny crew doing just fine without him had hit a nerve after all.

“And Eli?” Young asked, curious. “He’s been very…” he paused, searching for the right word,  “active, lately.”

“Oh aye, if by active you mean obsessed with Novus,” Rush sneered. And then stopped and looked at Young, the slightest worry in his eyes. “It’s not that that I mind that he’s trying to help Lt. Johansen,” he said, softening his tone. “God knows, she deserves it. But we’ve got  _ time _ , haven’t we? A lot can happen in five years.”

Young hmmmed, buying himself time to cool down his immediate defensive response. He’d been fighting with this impulse himself. Heck, he’d flown the shuttle down the second Eli had told him over the comlink. Though, to be fair, Eli had neglected to convey the whole story, making the whole situation sound more urgent. But he couldn’t argue with Rush’s logic. CO2 poisoning (thankfully now solved) and obliteration by a drone army were ultimately more pressing concerns, and they just didn’t have the luxury of time. “It’s true,” he admitted finally, looking down. “We have drones to worry about first.”

“We do,” Rush responded, momentarily grave. The flicker of Rush’s eyebrows told Young that, despite his attempt to hide it, Rush was actually surprised at his response. 

Ah. So it was a test. And he’d passed.  

He watched Rush look at him, intent and studying, for just a second before meeting his gaze. They stared at each other across the table, wordless but not silent. They were on the same page. Really, finally, on the same fucking page. Young could  _ feel  _ it. But what was more, he could see--no,  _ feel-- _ the realization sink into Rush. He could feel the buzz of their connection--usually so angry, so opposed, so ready to explode into shouting or violence--charge the air between them with something unfamiliar. It had the heat of anger and the coolness of certainty, but it whispered  _ possibility _ rather than portending destruction. Young felt his hair raise and his breath quicken. What could they  _ make  _ with this catalytic energy between them?  

And then Rush changed the subject.

“It’s those goddamn recordings! If I have to overhear that fucking school dedication speech one more time!”

Stunned for a moment, Young scrambled to catch up. Novus kinos. Right. He groaned in agreement. “Fuck, you’re telling me. At least you aren’t in the damn things. He keeps trying to make me watch ‘myself’”—Young made scare quotes in the air with his hands as he spoke—“make all kinds of frankly embarrassing speeches or run around with children I’ll never have. Or marry people. Lots of marrying people clips that he  _ really  _ wants me to see.” Young shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“Sometimes, I cannot believe he’s twenty-six. He acts like a teenager. And then the rest of them follow his lead, and I have a room full of high school nonsense. I stopped teaching freshmen for a reason and I don’t appreciate being reminded why. At least I didn’t have to worry about freshmen working on a broken weapons’ array!”

Young chuckled at the image of Rush wrangling unruly students in a lecture hall.  He smiled. “I forget sometimes.” But as he said it, he felt unaccountably sad.

Rush narrowed his eyes. “Forget what?”

“That you used to teach college.” His chest felt heavy.  _ That you have a whole life I know nothing about.  _

“Hmm.” Rush nodded and took a sip of his drink. “So do I.” Another sip. “Actually, I think I prefer it that way.”

“You don’t miss it?” 

“No. Well, that’s not entirely true, is it? Sometimes I would get one or two really gifted students. Sometimes those really gifted students actually enjoyed math. They made it worth it. But the marking and dealing with teaching assistants and department politics, and university politics. No. Not for a second.”

“You just wanted to be left alone to do your research, I imagine.”

“Quite right.” Another eyebrow twitch. 

Young drew in a breath. “It’s the same here, isn’t it?”

Rush didn’t answer, just tilted his head questioningly.

“You just want to work with Destiny. Alone.”

Rush was silent for a moment and then sighed deeply, as if he didn’t quite want to admit what he was about to say. “Yes.”

“You hate the team dynamics. You hate management.”

“I do,” Rush said, with a nervous laugh. “I really  _ fucking  _ do.” He looked so tired.

Young smiled. “I know.” 

Rush smiled back. Young’s heart clenched.

“It’s okay you know. It’s even something we can fix.”

“Is it, now?” Rush asked. His tone was humouring him, but his eyes were grateful.

“It is,” Young said confidently. “We just need to train your successor.”


	7. Proximity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush's perspective on "Chess Game".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to disaronnus for their awesome their beta-ing/ kicking my ass (true friendship is calling out inconsistencies and OOC moments)! Mistakes are mine :-)

When he showed up at Young’s quarters with a canteen of booze and his chessboard under his arm, Rush didn’t know what to think, or feel for that matter. The amusement he’d felt in the CI room had evaporated within minutes of the colonel leaving and his seemingly never-ending argument with the science team about mission priorities had resumed. At present, he was consumed by a head-spinning swirl of a swirl of stress, anger, exhaustion and a glint of what he might have recognized as hope, if he had the emotional wherewithal to name it. 

He stood in the corridor outside Young’s quarters, staring at the door. Ten minutes passed.

Overhearing the interchange between Young and the science team had rattled him more than he wanted to admit. Not because Young had defended him. No, in retrospect, that wasn’t surprising given their rather more synchronous dynamic lately. What bothered him was how quickly his own anxiety had spiked as soon as he’d heard Young’s voice. How quickly he’d been sure he’d been about to find out that his sense of Young as an ally was wrong — a mistake at best and deliberate manipulation at worst. He had enough to be worried about without his subconscious making trouble, doubting what he’d seen and felt with his own eyes over the past few weeks. He knew that Young was now firmly on his side.

Still. He felt at loose ends. Angry and frustrated with his team for being so juvenile and unfocused. Wanting to work alone and grateful for the opportunity, but worried, so worried that he would not be able to solve this drone problem alone. Part of him believed that the answer was hidden somewhere in the bowels of this ship, whether literally (in an undiscovered area), or metaphorically (buried in the computer matrix). If he could just get deeper into the ship, alone, without distraction, maybe even use the chair again, he was almost certain to find something that would help them beat or avoid the automated army. But there were always so many moving pieces to each problem and he was getting tired. No. Strike that. He was tired. He was so fucking unbelievably tired. 

And if he was right—and he usually was on some level—then the end of the line was coming soon. He had a sinking sense that as much as he wanted to be able to find the solution on his own, that maybe this time it wasn’t possible. That his brain had limits and Destiny-Gloria was right about him and the ship needing the crew to be able to survive. Young, despite all his prior failings, had known that one from the start. 

So yes, he felt angry and frustrated, but also tired, and worst of all, scared. Really scared. .Because if he didn't find them a way out, who would? He hated relying on other people because for most of his life they’d always let him down, but this fucking ship, this bloody, fucking ship, wasn’t giving him much of a choice. He had to admit that when his team was on, they did good work. Fuck, they even surprised him sometimes and that was hard to do (and he really, really didn’t like the way that made him feel).

But right now, his team wasn’t listening. They weren’t listening and he didn’t have the energy or the patience to deal with them on top of exploring the ship and staving off the drones. He was only one person. Why did he always have to do everything? He was so fucking tired of trying to, of pretending he could, and most of all, of hating himself because he couldn’t. 

He just couldn’t do this alone.

So he was here. Outside Young’s door. At Young’s invitation. Sort of. He was here because he’d said he’d be here. He was here because the colonel had something he wanted to discuss. He was here because it was a meeting. Because it was dinner. Because if he was really honest, there was no on this fucking ship he could talk to about the magnitude of what was looming besides Young. Not really. No—that wasn’t quite right, was it? There was no on this fucking ship he wanted to talk to.

He hit the door controls. At the sight of Young, hands in his pockets, lips in a tentative smile, Rush found his internal turmoil start to settle slightly. The spiraling thoughts began to slow and the pounding of his heart calmed. He was grateful for the relief he felt in Young’s steady presence, but also unnerved at how quickly the man affected him. He handed Young his canteen with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, trying to exude a cool exterior. But there was a hum in his veins that was definitely new. He knew from experience that he was probably going to drink more than was wise to get through this confusing push and pull towards his former rival. 

Young seemed a little uncertain, a little awkward, but pleased enough to see him.  
“I thought we were working?” 

Rush shrugged. “We’re off duty, aren’t we? Besides, I don’t know about you, but I need a drink after the science team’s utter nonsense lately.” 

Young made a noise of agreement that was somewhere between a hum and a sigh. “Do you mean the constant complaining or the fawning over Novus recordings or the poor boundaries with our refugees?” Young said knowingly.

Rush suppressed a wave of surprise at Young’s insightful map of the situation. It occurred to Rush that he knew few men who could express disapproval and frustration with Young’s level of composure — when he was composed, of course, which was thankfully more often than not these days. Good. This boded well.

“All of the above, Colonel. All of the above,” he said with relief.

Rush landed in the far couch quickly, the prospect of giving unfiltered expression to his frustration and exhaustion making it hard to keep himself upright any longer. They started with a drink and banter and when Young asked him about the science team with patience in his tone, and kindness in his eyes, Rush found himself unable and unwilling to resist. The words tumbled out of him, fuelled by a mix of fury and fear that he was rarely in contact with. 

Young didn’t flinch. Instead, he asked questions. He stayed calm. He genuinely wanted to know what Rush was reacting to. Rush was almost dizzy with relief to get his anger out. The fear was not so easy. He didn’t want to tell Young how much the drones scared him. He didn’t want to admit that he needed help, that he didn’t know what to do with his team, that he was starting to get dangerously tired. 

So when the colonel asked about Eli, Rush tried to deflect with anger, focusing on the boy’s obsession with Novus. He watched Young wince and he froze instantly, remembering T.J. Shit, shit, shit. God, he could be callous bastard sometimes. No doubt Young supported Eli’s crusade to find a cure, and why shouldn’t he? But this wasn’t about TJ; it was about survival. Young had to understand. He had to know that this wasn’t personal. 

Rush softened his tone, trying to explain. “It’s not that that I mind that he’s trying to help Lt. Johansen. God knows, she deserves it. But we’ve got time, haven’t we? A lot can happen in five years.”

Young hmmmed, eyes distant. Rush held his breath and stared at the FTL lights through the window behind Young. Lately Young had shifted his command behaviour to prioritizing the greater good. But when it came to T.J., Young wasn’t always able to see straight, Rush knew. He listened to Young breathing and thinking. Time seemed to slow and he could feel heat rising in his chest and palms. He fought back against rising panic that something was about to explode, or break. 

“It’s true,” Young admitted finally, looking down. “We have drones to worry about first.”

Rush felt a thrill of relief wash over him. He drew in a breath, trying to mask it. “We do,” he answered, voice low and serious. He didn’t want to be surprised, but part of him was, and part of him felt ashamed for that. Young had been steadily on his side for weeks now, and yet he was still doubting him. 

Rush looked at Young. 

Really looked at him. His chiselled features, which had always seemed stony and brutish to Rush – especially in a fight – seemed somewhat striking in the shadowy spotlight cast from Destiny’s overhead light. He marvelled that Young’s voice had held certainty and sadness, but no fear. He was not a conventionally handsome man, but Rush was aware that Young did have a certain pleasantness when he was grounded and competent, unshakeable, as he seemed tonight. 

Young looked up and met his gaze evenly. As they stared at each other, Rush felt an almost magnetic pull towards the other man. The hum in his veins grew more intense. 

Oh.  
Oh shit.  
This.  
A flare of desire, as unexpected as it was unmistakeable, bolted through him.  
While it had been decades since he’d felt attraction to another man, and even longer since he’d had sex with one, he hadn’t forgotten what it was like.  
Of course.  
He felt stupid for missing it.  
There had always been something strangely charged about their interactions, but he never would have seen it when he and Young were at odds. There’d been too much anger. But now, with the animosity cleared away, attraction burned pure and simple.

Young was staring at him with an intensity that made it hard to imagine that he couldn’t detect Rush’s desire from across the room. He felt exposed and vulnerable. And unable to read what was in the other man’s eyes. 

Rush changed the subject.

He focused on Eli and pulled all his frustration and irritation forward as a cover. “It’s those goddamn recordings! If I have to overhear that fucking school dedication speech one more time!”

Young stared for a second in surprise, blinked, and then groaned in agreement. “Fuck, you’re telling me. At least you aren’t in the damn things. He keeps trying to make me watch ‘myself’”—Young made scare quotes in the air with his hands as he spoke—“make all kinds of frankly embarrassing speeches or run around with children I’ll never have. Or marry people. Lots of marrying people clips that he really wants me to see.” Young shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

It worked. Rush felt himself relax as he continued: “Sometimes, I cannot believe he’s twenty-six. He acts like a teenager. And then the rest of them follow his lead, and I have a room full of high school nonsense. I stopped teaching freshmen for a reason and I don’t appreciate being reminded why. At least I didn’t have to worry about freshmen working on a broken weapons’ array!”

Young laughed, and then gave him a quizzical smile. “I forget sometimes.” 

What? The shift in Young’s voice felt oddly intimate. Rush narrowed his eyes. “Forget what?”

“That you used to teach college.” Young sounded… sad? How strange. 

“Hmm.” Rush nodded, pretending not to notice. He took a sip of his drink and answered flippantly. “So do I.” Another sip. More deflection. The (now distant) past could be a safe enough topic. “Actually, I think I prefer it that way.”

“You don’t miss it?” Young seemed genuinely interested. 

“No. Well, that’s not entirely true, is it?” Rush used lots of words, honest words, but still lots of words, to keep Young’s focus away from anything too personal. “Sometimes I would get one or two really gifted students. Sometimes those really gifted students actually enjoyed math. They made it worth it. But the marking and dealing with teaching assistants and department politics, and university politics. No. Not for a second.”

“You just wanted to be left alone to do your research, I imagine.” 

Rush’s breath caught. Shit. He didn’t know what to say. Lying seemed pointless. “Quite right.” 

Young drew in a breath. “It’s the same here, isn’t it?”

Rush tried not to react. He was speechless. Young was distressingly on point.  
He didn’t answer, just tilted his head as if asking a question.

“You just want to work with Destiny. Alone.”

Rush was silent for a moment and then sighed deeply. He wasn’t sure if it was the right time to admit this to Young, but here they were, on the issue he’d been spinning about outside Young’s door. He felt resigned as he answered. “Yes.”

“You hate the team dynamics. You hate management.” Young seemed calm and completely unbothered. 

“I do,” Rush said, with a nervous laugh, relief mixing with disbelief at himself for thinking Young wouldn’t have seen right through him. “I really fucking do.” God it was freeing to say it aloud. 

Young smiled, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “I know,” he said.

Rush’s heart clenched at the fondness in Young’s tone and the warmth in his eyes. 

Before he could better of it, he smiled back.

“It’s okay you know. It’s even something we can fix,” Young said.

“Is it, now?” Rush joked, trying to hide the gratefulness that flooded through him. 

“It is,” Young said confidently. “We just need to train your successor.”

What followed was a practical, insightful conversation about the various strengths, weaknesses and personality foibles of the various members of the science team. Rush clearly had never given Young enough credit for his perception and understanding of people. Rush was a little awed and had a hard time following some parts of it (at least until he turned his attention to cold dinner plate in front of him and actually ate something). At one point Young brought over his laptop and took notes on their conversation. About an hour and half later, they had a plan. 

Eli was too young and inexperienced to take over as the head of the science team, despite his raw genius. Park, on the other hand, had the knowledge and experience, but more importantly the respect and rapport with all of the other members. She was their first choice. Young was going to start training her in team leadership. She worked well with Eli, who listened to her more often than not, and that was key because there were certain technical skills that Eli and only Eli could take over. Rush was going to train him.

They talked about math lessons for Eli and Chloe, and engineering training for Volker, who already worked with Brody on most mechanical issues. There were a few officers trained in engineering and familiar with aspects of Ancient technology from their stint on Atlantis that Young wanted to bring onto the team to work on weapons and the FTL drive. Broadening bridge training was a must because it meant they could move from three 8 hour shifts to four 6 hour shifts and keep everyone sharper. The long term plan was that Rush would have seniority, but not day to day responsibility, and would be regularly briefed in meetings with Park, but otherwise be free to study the ship, to be the “vanguard of the science team,” as Young put it. 

The shift in their conversation to planning had made it easy for Rush to focus on the computer screen, and the words and numbers in the notes Young had produced—even if it was slightly awkward to lean over the coffee table at an angle because Young was still seated on the opposite couch. Rush could almost forget the spike of desire he’d felt earlier.

When Destiny’s 24 hour clock dimmed the lights for “night” at 10 pm, Young got up to bring a lamp over from the desk and looked down at the laptop.

“Honestly, this is killing my back. Do you mind?”  
He put down the lamp and waved his hands in a ‘move over’ motion, and Rush shifted over before thinking it through. 

They had sat side by side on a couch before, of course, on the observation deck weeks ago. But this time when Young sat down beside him, it wasn’t just their shoulders touching. The laptop screen was small and Young leaned in to see the document more clearly as he scrolled through it. He sat unselfconsciously, legs wide, left thigh and knee coming to rest against Rush’s right leg. 

Rush swallowed awkwardly at the contact. Young was warm, and smelled faintly of sweat and gun oil and the strange shower mist and Brody’s liquor. It wasn’t unpleasant; it was comforting and familiar. Suddenly Rush remembered the night he and Young had shared a bed. He remembered supporting Young, arms slung across each other’s shoulders, through the halls to his quarters that night after the party. And with an unexpected jolt of arousal, he remembered Young on top of him, pinning him down on the deck of an alien ship. He swallowed again, hard, and drew in a breath and tried to will his body to ignore what was happening as he stared at the screen. 

It almost worked.

And then Young put on his fucking glasses and exclaimed something about the spreadsheet.

Rush’s insides melted. 

Who knew Everett fucking Young could be goddamn cute?

Rush did the only thing he could think of. He yawned. Loudly. And stretched, taking the opportunity to shuffle away from Young to avoid hitting him with his arms. 

“Oh shit,” Young said. “You’re tired. It’s pretty late.” He looked apologetic. “You probably want to get to bed.”

Ack. Bed. Fuck. That was obviously not what Young meant.

Rush shook his head. “It’s fine, colonel, really.” He shrugged, and out of habit and constant tension, massaged his neck as he yawned again. 

Young shut the laptop. “Nah. We can pick this up tomorrow. Or later in the week. If you want. These problems aren’t going anywhere.”

Rush nodded, and closed his eyes for a moment. He should probably, as Young had said, get to bed. 

He didn’t want to go. He was tired. And sore. But the chaotic swirl of emotions had calmed down considerably. He no longer felt rising panic about not being able to solve the drone threat. He no longer felt rage and irritation at his team. He no longer felt anger and self-loathing at needing help. He no longer felt that help was impossible. He no longer felt alone.

Young was unequivocally the cause. And he couldn’t quite bear to leave his presence and go back to his dark, empty quarters. 

Beside him, Young shifted to pick up the canteen. 

“Uh. You can, you know, um, stay for another drink. If you want.” Young said tentatively. 

Rush looked at Young’s hopeful expression. Huh. Young didn’t want him to go either. 

“Yes. Sure,” he said, more to himself than to Young, and reached for his cup. It had been almost two hours since their last drink and he wasn’t nearly as buzzed.

Young poured them each another drink. He didn’t move back to the other couch. 

Rush sipped his drink and stared into the cup. What hell was he doing? Young was going to notice something. If nothing else, if Young kept sitting fucking beside him, knees and shoulders touching, there was a non-zero chance that Rush was going to get an erection and that would be very, very hard to explain…..

(Maybe it was the stress. Maybe it was the dizzying relief from the stress found in Young’s presence. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the fact that his body hadn’t had sex with another person in almost five years. Maybe it was Young’s infuriatingly endearing glasses. Or the fact that the man obviously wanted to be sitting close enough to touch him.)

…..but Rush didn’t care. He didn’t care that it was risky. The desire was thrilling and he didn't have the wherewithal to fight it. Besides, it’s not like Young could read minds. He relaxed into the back of the couch and let himself enjoy the heat of Young’s body where it rested against his. 

They sat in a companionable silence for a few minutes. He listened to Young’s steady, regular breathing. The man seemed completely comfortable. He also seemed to enjoy the physical contact, because he still wasn’t moving. It occurred to Rush that likely Young also hadn’t had any sexual contact in years — at least since Icarus. Maybe he missed physical contact too. Heck, that might explain why he was so physically affectionate with his crew. 

He also realized that he’d been assuming this whole time that Young was straight. 

What if he wasn’t?

Oh, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t sure what was more ridiculous: the fact that he was attracted to Young, or the fact that he was sitting beside him actively speculating about his sexual orientation. Obviously nothing was going to happen. There was no reason to take his rebellious body seriously on this matter.

Then he had a flash of a memory of a particularly awkward night in his undergraduate college room with an upperclassman named William. He was from the physics department and almost as shy as he was. They’d sat listening to opera on his tiny bed and drinking til 3 until he’d finally had the goddamn sense to kiss the guy and get on with it. 

He remembered Young’s grin and casual presumption about bringing them both dinner. The looks on his team’s faces. For some reason, Rush had felt compelled to bring his chessboard. Oh bloody hell, he’d even worn a nicer shirt. It’s like some part of his subconscious has already known. And Young… Young had been kind and careful and accommodating, and he kept smiling at him.

A date. Fucking hell. This felt like date.

Rush let his shoulder lean into Young’s. 

Young leaned back.


End file.
